Lou Reed Talks "Berlin" and Lots of Other Stuff

There's a great article about Lou Reed at Stuff.co.nz that you should check out. It's title: "A Walk on the Wild Side With Lou Reed." My lord that's awesome! Anyway, here are a few bits:

"Over the course of the interview, Reed proves erudite, charming and just a little eccentric. His legendary prickliness surfaces only when he bluntly tells his publicist, at one point, to get lost. In a deep, lazy drawl he chats about everything from rap music ("'it's white kids getting off listening to a fantasy black person with a big gangsta life') to the loss of privacy brought about by technology ('Never save anything. You go to YouTube and you'll find more than you ever thought if you left anything around. That's why now, in studios, I erase everything. They can't release the out-takes because there aren't any'); from auteur director Robert Wilson ('Bob and I are like a hand in a glove, and that's because we're both very aware of Andy, the master. Everybody got something from Mr Warhol') to his lifelong passion, tai chi ('Boy, I wish I could bring [Master Ren, his long-time teacher] when I go to Australia').

The writer suggested that Berlin might have gone over better these days, and here's what Reed had to say:

"I mean with gangsta rap now, with its bitches and whores getting stabbed, and I'll shoot your dick off and run you over with a Mack truck, and even with country and western - I stabbed him in a park because he cheated on me - I don't know, would Berlin make more sense now? I have no idea.

"Still, I was there first, in an uncharted land that no one wanted. I was there and I had it all to myself ... That kind of stuff, what you'd call hardcore, almost made it so I couldn't make other records. You didn't know what to expect from me and that's why I've never been big. I was always on the outside."

There's a lot more, including talk of the staging of Berlin and how much everyone hated it when it came out. Of course, this is the classic example of Advancement because everybody knows how awesome that record is. Also, erasing all your outtakes is a perfect Advanced Irritant move. I really can't wait unitl Friday!